I want to ask you a question. When Douyin first came out, did you ever have this situation: you saw people around you playing Douyin, and then you thought what was being filmed there was nothing good, a waste of time! Just uninstall it! After a while, you quietly downloaded it back. Has the above situation ever happened to you? It’s not just you, I used to be like this too. As the head of a company, when Douyin first came out, I saw a group of young ladies dancing wildly in Douyin, and I felt that they were very naive. Later, after calming down and understanding Douyin, I put aside my prejudice and began to think that there are many talents in Douyin. What kind of magic does Douyin have that makes us uninstall and then install it again? In fact, what really pulls you into the pit may not be Douyin, but “your anxiety”, because none of us want to be abandoned by the times.
From the official launch to now, Douyin has reached 250 million daily active users in less than 3 years, and it will continue to grow with the popularization of 5G. With such rapid growth, how did Douyin make us addicted? Next, I will take you to understand some unknown secrets of Douyin.
1. Full-screen immersive experience
Once you enter the Douyin interface, the short video directly dominates the entire mobile phone, canceling the common bars and frames of other products, which is equivalent to hiding the window. When the short video is in horizontal screen, a black background is used, which is similar to the enclosed space after the lights are turned off in a cinema.
Exclude other interferences and let you immerse yourself as much as possible. In this way, there is only Douyin in your world, and even other apps on your phone cannot easily interfere with you.
Similarly, there is a windowless arrangement in the casino. In the casino, there are almost no transparent glass windows, not even frosted glass windows, which isolate you from the outside world, and any factors that interfere with the guests’ gambling mood are excluded. Similarly, in the Douyin garden maze, it is easy to get in but difficult to get out.
2. Swipe down to quickly switch short videos
The spacing between each short video content of Douyin is very close, and you don’t need to do too much action at all. After watching it, or encountering a video you don’t like, you can switch to the next one by swiping up and down. And the next content is also pushed to you by the system. In the casino hall, there are densely packed gambling tables, and the distance between each gambling table is very close. Each exit is filled with gambling machines. What needs to be strengthened is the attraction of this gambling table, so that you don’t leave easily.
Browsing Douyin and seeing content that you don’t like is equivalent to the situation being bad, losing, and you are unhappy. Just swipe, and in a flash, a new gambling table is quickly switched in front of you. The cards in your hand are also good, and they look a bit interesting. You, who originally felt a little tired and were about to get up, were retained. You think you made your own choice, but in fact you are still the passive recipient, and everything is arranged.
3.15 seconds of “earworm” music
The rapid outbreak of Douyin short videos has also spawned a group of “Douyin divine songs”, which I call “saliva songs” for short.
Automatically play in your mind, accompanied by interesting pictures in Douyin. Many people must have had the experience of being brainwashed by these divine songs. The brain uncontrollably loops these melodies anytime and anywhere. This phenomenon has a unique scientific name, called unconscious musical fantasy, and its nickname is “earworm”. Scientific research has found that music that can occupy your brain and loop in a single song often has simple melodies, repetitive, and brisk rhythms. Looking at the soundtracks of Douyin again, most of them are the climax of the songs, which are very memorable. At the same time, the music soundtracks on Douyin have a prominent commonality-simple and repetitive.
The melodies selected from these songs are simple and have high-frequency repetitiveness, which strengthens users’ memory of the songs.
At the same time, experiments show that the music in the earworm phenomenon lasts for 10 to 15 seconds, which is exactly the length of a Douyin video with music.
In general, people will probably experience the “earworm” phenomenon when they are anxious or have low attention. Then the 15-second soundtrack of Douyin is like an invisible switch. You think you took the initiative to make the choice to open Douyin, but in fact, it is very likely that Douyin is controlling you.
4. No threshold, direct eye stimulation
When you enter the homepage of Douyin, you don’t need to click to play automatically, and you will see the hot short videos right away. Through its efficient algorithm and tags, the first video pushed to you can often hit you. For example: users who like kittens often see the first short video related to kittens.
9.1.5 Unpredictable content
The full-screen design allows users to only see the current content each time. As long as they swipe their fingers up, they can watch the next short video. You can’t accurately guess what the next video will be, which is an important reason why you can’t extricate yourself. Sometimes, there is a huge difference between the content of the upper and lower short videos. You may have just watched the hot dance of a young lady, and a cute pet will appear in front of you as soon as you swipe the screen.
Douyin is like a box of chocolates. You never know what the next short video will taste like. People who are addicted to Douyin are actually very tired. They tell themselves that they will stop watching this one after watching it, but they still want to watch another one uncontrollably.
This is because the side effects of dopamine produced in the brain cause you to frantically look forward to and seek rewards. Too much dopamine keeps you in an irrational state of hunger and thirst, unable to feel satisfied, and you simply cannot stop, even if you are exhausted.
Because of the lack of thinking and excessive compensation, your cognitive ability, thinking ability, decision-making ability, and self-control ability will continue to decline over time, and your impulsivity will gradually increase. In other words, you are out of control.
After reading the above five secrets, you know the principle of how Douyin makes you addicted. Do you suddenly feel that Douyin is terrible? In fact, everything has two sides. The author’s purpose is to tell everyone that if you want to be as popular as Douyin, you must have insight into human nature. Only by paying attention to the people and things around you and knowing the principles behind them, can you use the tool of Douyin to create greater value.